Each time I have connected with Puanani Burgess, she has gifted me with a story. I share her gift with you….

The photo is attributed to Ama Johnson and Monte Costa.

This is a photograph of the Hokule’a, the long distance canoe that has carried us back and forth to our place of origin in the Pacific. It is the canoe that Hawaiians, having been taught by our cousins in the Pacific from the Satawals, to navigate without instruments, like our ancestors, that has traveled over thousands of miles by being able to read the winds, waves, sky, birds and other animals. I use it to talk about the difference between vision and mission. Nainoa Thompson, the Hawaiian who was taught to navigate in the old way, stood for hours and days at a lookout on O’ahu, being exhorted by Mau Pialug, the Master Navigator, to look beyond the horizon, to see as far as Nainoa could to be able to see the island that he was going to, especially if he’s never been there before. Mau explained that unless Nainoa could see the island he was going to that he has never been to before, that he would never be able to get there. It seems to be a paradox, but it isn’t. You need to see where you’re going clearly, or you can never get there – that seeing is the vision. The canoe that you build to get there and the crew and supplies you put into the canoe are the mission – the way you get to the vision. I thought you would appreciate seeing this photograph. Whenever I see how small that canoe is and how vast the ocean is, I realize what an enormous feat of heart, mind, spirit and body it is to travel the long distance to one’s vision.

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Credits

This conference is being organized with support from the Kellogg Foundation and the Co-Intelligence Institute. Illustration credits: Dana Lynne Andersen, in From Lava to Life: the Universe Tells our Earth Story by Jennifer Morgan -- Courtesy of Dawn Publications